Buena Park-based Amada America Inc. is set to increase its already sizeable North County presence with the renovation and expansion of an industrial building it recently bought in Brea.
The company, a unit of Japan-based machine tools manufacturer Amada Co. Ltd., is planning to grow operations and its local work force with the addition of 100 S. Puente St., an 185,741-square-foot building near Imperial Highway.
Amada’s products are used in the aerospace, computer, farm equipment, gaming, medical equipment and transportation industries, among others. The company employs 500 people locally, according to David Kehrli, general counsel for the company.
Amada bought the Brea building a few months ago for $16 million, or about $86 per square foot, from locally based Sekisui TA Industries LLC, a packing tape and supplies maker.
The Brea property includes about 30,000 square feet of office space, a small park and a man-made pond, among other features.
Since the sale, Sekisui, part of Japan’s Sekisui Chemical Co., has been operating out of the building on a short-term lease. It’s in the process of moving to an industrial property in Buena Park.
Amada will renovate the Puente Street property, which is about 11 years old, before moving in around the end of the year.
The company also is planning a nearly 60,000-square-foot expansion to the site, according to Kehrli. Groundbreaking on the expansion is expected in a matter of months, he said.
The expansion is likely to be the largest industrial project under construction in Orange County at the time, according to brokerage data.
80 Jobs
Amada expects to add another 80 or so jobs to fill the Brea property, according to Kehrli.
The existing Brea office was designed as a corporate headquarters facility, but Amada will be keeping its domestic headquarters in another building it owns at 7025 Firestone Blvd. in Buena Park, just off the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway. The 103,000-square-foot headquarters building also is being renovated, according to Kehrli.
The company owns three other buildings in Buena Park and La Mirada totaling about 200,000 square feet.
The Puente Street acquisition and expansion will boost Amada’s local real estate holdings to nearly 550,000 square feet.
Work From Japan
The purchase of the Brea property followed a decision to move manufacturing of Amada’s laser-cutting systems from Japan to the U.S, where sales have been on the uptick, according to Kehrli.
The Brea parcel and facility Amada bought was originally built for Sekisui, which paid real estate investor and developer Operon Group about $7 million for the 12-acre site in 2000. Sekisui reportedly spent another $7 million on the building’s construction.
Sekisui had been based in Garden Grove prior to moving into the Brea property.
Sekisui, said to be one of the five largest packing-tape manufacturers in the country, is moving headquarters again. It recently leased 76,216 square feet of industrial space at 6131 Knott Ave. in Buena Park, according to Ben Seybold, senior vice president for the Anaheim office of brokerage CBRE Group Inc.
Sekisui’s Move
The Buena Park building, part of a 272,000-square-foot building owned by industrial developer ProLogis Inc., is a few blocks from Amada’s headquarters.
Sekisui also has a manufacturing plant in Rogersville, Tenn., and warehouses in Dallas as well as Neenah, Wis., and Somerset, N.J., according to the company’s website.
Seybold and colleagues Sean Ward and Kenji Sakai represented both Amada and Sekisui in the $16 million sale of the building in Brea, which is among the larger industrial sales in North OC this year.
The building was put up for sale late last year with an initial listing price of about $16.7 million, according to marketing materials.
CBRE’s Seybold and Ward also represented Sekisui in its new Buena Park lease. n
